The pipe swings before I fully register the sound.
There is no time to think. No time to calculate angles or distance or consequence. There is only Elena’s face, twisted in terror, and the instinct that has owned me since the moment Adrian made her his target.
I dive.
The impact lands on my forearm with a sound that does not belong to anything living. A crack like a branch snapping under too much weight. Pain detonates up my arm, white and blinding, stealing the breath straight out of my chest. It is not a clean pain. It splinters. It radiates. It tears through muscle and nerve and thought all at once.
I hit the floor hard, shoulder skidding across grit and broken glass. Something sharp bites into my back. My vision blurs for half a second, edges pulsing, the world narrowing into a tun
